Release
by CaptAcorn
Summary: How do you mourn the loss of someone you never really had? Story six from my Home series.


**A/N** : This story references a minor character death. Please see acknowledgments in the first story of the series, **Fresh Start**. For your convenience, here's a list of all the stories in the series:

1\. Fresh Start

2\. Running to the End

3\. Growing Pains

4\. Grounded

5\. Preferences

* * *

B'Elanna swore again. _How have we not managed to hire a single competent engineer?_ She had just found the fifth error on the propulsion system design for the deep sea submersible that they'd been contracted to develop. Aquatic vehicles were not her forte — it was only because of Tom's interest that she was willing to take on these projects — so she relied on her subordinates to take the lead on the initial specs. "Too bad none of them are up to the fucking challenge," she muttered as she spotted mistake number six.

"B'Elanna?"

"What?" she snapped.

"It's almost noon," Tom said. She heard him slip into the office and close the door with a soft click. His hands slid over her shoulders and she tensed.

"And?"

"And," he said, pressing his hands down more firmly when she tried to shrug them off. "We should leave in about a half an hour. I figured you'd want to change."

"I'd love to change," she grumbled. Tom's hands squeezed her shoulders again, until she relented and let them relax into his touch. "Unfortunately, I have to fix your employees' sloppy work instead."

She tensed again the moment she felt Tom's left hand stop its work. He had reached over her to flip off the monitor. "Those would be _our_ sloppy employees. And you liked them well enough last week."

"I've changed my mind. They're all useless. I'm not even halfway through these specs, and I've already— "

"B'Elanna." He spun her chair until she was facing him and lowered himself to his knees. "That design isn't due for two weeks. You don't have to do this today."

She stood, leaving her husband kneeling on the floor. "Are the kids here yet?"

Tom grunted as he pushed himself back to standing. "They're meeting us there, remember?"

She didn't remember. She also didn't remember what time they were supposed to be there, or where she had put the shoes she needed for the dress she was going to wear, or if she'd called the florist like she was supposed to. Tom was behind her again, this time wrapping his arms around her waist.

"You're right," she said, pulling out of his embrace. "I should get changed."

/=\

Why couldn't anyone just do their jobs? There were supposed to be servers walking through the reception, passing out the food, but it had all been left to bake in the midday sun on this table that was out of the flow of traffic. Maybe Tom could talk to the caterers — B'Elanna was in no mood to play the Friendly Klingon. She scanned the crowd and spotted her husband with his arm around Miral's shoulders, talking to her cousin Dean.

B'Elanna sighed and turned back to the hors d'oeuvres. She'd just deal with it herself. Her daughter was taking this hard — despite the fact that she was almost twenty-eight, this was the first family death she'd had to deal with and the two had always been close. Miral needed her father a lot more than a bunch of abandoned appetizers did. Maybe Joe could help her.

"How are you holding up?"

B'Elanna closed her eyes and let a long, slow breath out through her nose. That must be the hundredth time she'd heard that question today. She didn't bother to turn from the table. "I'd be better if everyone would stop asking me that."

"Sorry."

"I've heard that about a hundred times, too," she said, before peering over her shoulder at her old friend. "How did you even find out?"

Chakotay gave her a sad half-smile. "Tom commed me. He thought you could use whatever support you could get right now."

She turned back to the canapes. They hadn't even arranged the food properly. There was no reason to have two half-empty plates out. The mushroom tarts could easily fit in next to the sausage rolls. Although maybe the vegetarians would take offense? B'Elanna had one right here — she could ask him, she supposed. "Would you be willing to eat mushroom tarts if they're on the same plate as meat? The sausage is replicated, if that makes a difference."

"B'Elanna," Chakotay said, in his 'understanding' voice. The one B'Elanna had been dreading since the moment she'd spotted him amongst the other mourners at the beginning of the service.

"Well?" she persisted. "Would you or not? I'm not sure of the etiquette of these things. There aren't a whole lot of vegetarian Klingons."

He put a hand on her shoulder. God, why did everyone keep _doing_ that? First Tom, now Chakotay. And Janeway. Of course, Janeway had done it. "I think you can let the caterers worry about that," he said. "Why don't we take a walk?"

As much as she was not looking forward to the conversation Chakotay was inevitably going to force on her, a walk didn't sound like such a bad idea. The crowd at the reception was stifling. Why were there so many damn people here? Had he even known all these people?

With his hand firmly placed at the small of her back, Chakotay guided her towards a walled off garden separated from the main gathering area. There was a bubbling fountain in the center, and the adobe walls muffled the noise from the reception. B'Elanna breathed in the heady smell of jasmine and sat on the edge of the fountain. She wondered where people got the coins that had been tossed into the water. The idea of them being authentic was quickly discarded — those would have been much too valuable. Did people replicate them just to throw them away? What a waste.

"Do you want to talk?"

"We should have had this in Salina Cruz. That's where he was from." B'Elanna was aware that wasn't what Chakotay was looking for, but it _did_ qualify as talking. He couldn't argue with that.

"Do you still have family there?"

B'Elanna shook her head. "I don't think so. My uncle moved to Australia decades ago, when my _abuela_ left to join my parents on Kessik. There may be some cousins or something. I'm not sure."

"Then having it here in San Diego probably made the most sense," Chakotay replied as he lowered himself to sit next to her. "He moved here nearly twenty years ago, didn't he? To be near you and Tom?"

"He wanted to be near the kids," B'Elanna clarified. "Speaking of which, I haven't asked you. How are yours? And Tama? Are they here?"

"The kids are great, Tama is, too, and none of them came. Tama hates space travel. She hasn't left Dorvan in almost a decade." He fell silent. B'Elanna fought to keep her leg from bouncing, knowing what was coming next.

"Why don't you tell me how you're feeling right now? It might help. No judgment, I promise. I'm just here to listen."

 _And there it is._ B'Elanna stood and walked over to the climbing vines that framed the garden's entrance. The jasmine's scent had become cloying. Why was there so much of it in here? She could hardly breathe. "I'm feeling like you didn't need to come all the way to Earth, Chakotay, just to ask me to talk. I'm feeling like I'm not a troubled teen and maybe you've let being a high school teacher go to your head. I'm feeling like I have hours of work I need to get done before Monday and I want this day to be over."

"B'Elanna, work can wait. Your father just died."

She turned back to him, snorting. "Thank you for the reminder. I almost forgot." When he still had that same infuriatingly patient look on his face, she rolled her eyes. "Look. The fact of the matter is, we were never close. We didn't have much in common, but the kids loved him and he was a good grandfather. They're really the only reason we kept in touch. Miral and Joe are the ones you should be checking on. _They_ are the ones that are grieving for him. All I want is to get to the end of this damn reception and go home." B'Elanna left the garden without looking back. She should get the caterers to pass the food around like they were supposed to.

/=\

"Ms. Torres?"

It felt like she was never getting out of here. Joe and Miral had already left with John's ashes. They would go out tomorrow as a family to scatter them at Puerto Ángel as her father had requested in his will. Tom was escorting the last, straggling mourners to their transportation — a small group of elderly colleagues of her father's that had talked her ear off until her husband had swept in to the rescue. B'Elanna had thought she was finally in the clear and only had to wait for Tom to return so they could go home, but apparently she'd forgotten something.

"I'm so sorry. We forgot to put this out. But I wanted to make sure it got back to your family." Elissa, the soft-voiced woman that had helped them arrange the service, was holding a silver frame in her hand.

B'Elanna took the frame from her and felt her stomachs twist at the photo held within. "Where did you get this?"

"From a Ms. Lesmono? She said she found it at her house and wanted to give it to you and your family. She gave it to my assistant before the service, but he forgot about it in all the commotion. I'm sorry again."

B'Elanna waved her off. "It's fine. Thank you for giving it to me." Agnes Lesmono was her father's second, and last, wife. B'Elanna had never known her well, as their marriage had already been rocky when _Voyager_ arrived back in the Alpha Quadrant. They'd divorced before Miral turned three, but, unlike his split with B'Elanna's mother, their parting had been amicable. B'Elanna recognized, belatedly, that she'd seen Agnes earlier that day — one of the dozens of vaguely familiar faces that had offered their condolences while squeezing her hand or clasping her in a tentative embrace.

Elissa was still watching her, eyes sympathetic. _Does she practice that look in a mirror? How does she make it just the right mix of unintrusive and compassionate?_ "Thank you for everything today," B'Elanna managed to choke out. "The service was lovely. As soon as my husband gets back, I'll be out of your hair."

Apparently another part of Elissa's job was knowing when she was being dismissed. "There's no rush, Ms. Torres. Take as much time as you need." With a nod, she left B'Elanna alone with her thoughts and the photograph.

The afternoon sun was beginning to fade and a sudden breeze infused the courtyard with the scent of the thyme and lavender planted around its edges. B'Elanna pulled her sweater tighter with one hand as she regarded the picture in her other. It was a portrait of her father, of course, much younger than when he was married to Agnes. In his lap, he was holding a toddler-aged B'Elanna.

No sweet, smiling cherub was she. Nope — even as a toddler she looked sullen and ill-tempered, her serious eyes and downturned mouth framed by heavy, dark hair. Her father's smile was out-sized, as if trying to compensate for his surly child. While she'd been too young to remember taking the photo, she remembered seeing it on her father's desk at his office on Kessik.

"Why do you have that picture there, Daddy?" she had asked him on one of her visits to the small room off the research laboratory where he worked.

"So I can remember my Little Bee even when I'm not with her," he answered as he pulled her to his lap with a kiss.

She wondered why he took the picture with him when he left Kessik. B'Elanna would have thought that, back then, he'd have wanted to obliterate every memory he'd had of his abandoned family. Or was that why he'd taken it? If his resolve weakened — if he thought, perhaps, that he should reconcile with his wife or send his daughter a birthday gift — would he look at this image to remind himself of why he left in the first place? After all, how attached to the photo could he be, if he'd left it with his ex over twenty years ago, never bothering to reclaim it?

"Ready to go?"

B'Elanna startled and turned at her husband's voice. Tom was standing only an arm's length away. How had she not heard him approach? "Yeah, I'm all set. Are we meeting the kids back at the house?"

Tom shed his suit jacket and held it out to her. "You look cold," he said. "And, no. They're going to my parents' house for dinner. They don't get to see them much anymore. I thought maybe you'd like a little peace and quiet, besides."

B'Elanna nodded as she took the jacket, wondering how hurt he'd be if she asked him to leave her and join the rest of the family for dinner. "I think… I think I'm going to walk back to the house. It's not that far."

"OK," Tom said and she internally breathed a sigh of relief that he wasn't pressing her. "Let's go." His hand was extended towards her.

 _Damn it._ "Oh," she said aloud. "I didn't mean… You don't have to come with me. Isn't your knee still bothering you?" He'd torn some ligaments a couple weeks ago while skiing in Chile with Joe.

"Nah," he said, already moving them towards the gateway that left the courtyard. "It's a lot better since I took the Doc's advice and started swimming. Annoying, isn't it? How often he's right?"

"Very," she agreed, and thought maybe it would be OK. Maybe Tom would know how little she wanted to talk about it, how she just wanted to move on with her life. There was no point to discussing her relationship with her father anymore, after all. He was gone for good now. No coming back from this one.

"Do you want me to carry that for you?"

He meant the photo she was still holding in her right hand. She fought an impulse to dash it against the sidewalk, fearful the image would just prompt Tom to pry into her emotional state. But she knew trying to keep it from him would only pique his curiosity. "Sure. Thanks. Agnes brought it, I guess. She found it at her house."

Tom took the photo and grinned. "You were adorable."

B'Elanna rolled her eyes and walked a little faster. "You would say that even if I was covered in pox and had a shaved head. It's a terrible picture."

"You've got to be kidding me!" he exclaimed, matching his stride to hers. "This could be a picture of Miri at that age! Remember she went through that phase where we couldn't get a decent shot of her? She was either baring her teeth like she wanted to eat the camera, or she looked like she'd just swallowed a bug? You've just got the bug face here."

B'Elanna snorted a laugh in spite of herself. "Then there was Joe, who, as I recall, would actually put a bag over his head if we wanted to take his picture. Remember his school photo from kindergarten?"

Tom shook his head with a laugh. "We really should have put that out at his graduation like we threatened."

They walked in silence for a while, B'Elanna slowing their pace to more of an amble when she noted Tom had started to limp. "Thank you," she said. "For giving me some space today. For not being the hundredth person to ask if I want to talk."

"I prefer it when you're annoyed with Chakotay versus me," he admitted. "But you can, if you want. Talk to me."

"I don't want."

"That's OK, too."

Five more minutes passed in silence. B'Elanna saw the way Tom was dragging his left leg and sighed. "I see you limping. Are you sure you don't want me to call a cab?"

"I'm fine."

"I don't mind. I'll go with you."

"But you wanted to walk. So let's walk. It's not that much farther."

B'Elanna stopped in her tracks. "You're being ridiculous. Your knee is obviously bothering you. You've been standing on it all day, we've been walking for twenty minutes, and I don't care how much swimming you've been doing — you're clearly in pain! Why won't you just admit it?"

Tom just stood there, his eyebrows raised in an unspoken question.

 _Oh, for God's sake._ She'd walked right into that one. "I hate you sometimes."

"I know."

"Why does everyone insist that I have to be so emotional about this?" she demanded, pacing a tight circle around her husband. "He abandoned me, we reconciled, he was a good grandfather, he lived a long life, and he died. End of story. Isn't it possible I've dealt with all of this? Isn't it possible that I just don't have anything to say?"

"It's possible," Tom said, sitting down on the low wall that lined the sidewalk. "I just don't think it's very likely. As your fellow passenger on the Good Ship Daddy Issues, I have a sneaking suspicion that you have lots to say about this. Your father died, B'Elanna. Good or bad, you can't tell me that hasn't triggered _something_."

"Fine. I'm sad that he's gone. I wish we'd been closer. I should have told him I loved him more often. Is that what you want to hear?"

"If that's what you want to say."

"It is," she said, starting to walk again. If he was going to pretend his knee wasn't a problem, B'Elanna might as well play along.

"I'm glad we had this talk," he said, puffing a little as he caught up with her.

She was just so tired of it all. Everyone telling her it was OK to be sad, it was OK to be angry. Maybe she wasn't any of those things. Maybe she didn't feel much of anything. Hell, they barely knew each other. Over the last twenty odd years their conversations mostly consisted of the weather, what the kids were up to, and if B'Elanna was busy at work, in that order. He had never bothered to ask her anything deeper, and she hadn't been interested in volunteering it. Why was she supposed to be so upset about losing someone that she'd never really had? It was like asking her to mourn her dentist, or the guy who made her raktajino every morning.

B'Elanna let herself into their house, reaching it half a block before her gimpy spouse. "Calm down, Bess." She shushed their exuberant dog when the border collie jumped on her. "I'll let you into the yard, just calm down." That's where Tom found her, ten minutes later, the skirt of her dress covered in black and white fur and slimy tennis ball in hand.

"Hi, Bessie," Tom said, ruffling the dog's soft, black ears before handing B'Elanna the comm device she'd left in the kitchen. "There's a message for you. Did you see? It's from Agnes."

"I should change anyway," she said, tossing the ball to Tom and taking her comm into the house.

"I'm sorry we didn't get to talk more at the service," Agnes said in her message, her voice shaky with age or emotion, B'Elanna wasn't sure. "I loved your father very much, even after… I know it might not seem that way, but I did. And I wanted to make sure they gave you the photo. I think they forgot to put it out, but make sure you get it. I felt so terrible when I found it. Your father tore the house apart looking for it, when we separated. He was devastated. I thought we'd lost it in the move, or one of us had thrown it out by accident. But then I was going through some old crates, and there it was. I'm so sorry, B'Elanna. About your father. He never really forgave himself, you know. And he loved you very much. I hope you know that."

B'Elanna shut off the comm. She let out a shaky breath and looked up to see the photo on the kitchen table. Tom must have left it there when he'd come in. She moved to the table and picked it up, tracing a thumb over her father's smiling face. She was trying to blink her tears away when she heard Tom's footfalls and the jingle of Bess's tags behind her.

"I was relieved," she said in a small voice.

"What?" he asked over the sound of the kitchen sink. "Did you say something?"

"I was relieved," she said, her voice echoing through the room as Tom shut off the water.

"About what?"

"When he died." B'Elanna wiped at the tears she was no longer able to hide. "I was relieved when he died. I was worried, when he got the diagnosis — that it would be months of carting him back and forth to doctor's appointments. Or I'd be constantly at his house, having to take care of him. Or we'd have to let him move in here. Because who else was going to do it? But I didn't want to. I didn't want to spend time with him — to have to listen to him constantly apologize for everything or look at his guilty face. I didn't want to do any of it. I just wanted the whole problem to go away. I wanted him to go away, Tom."

"Oh, B'Elanna." She felt Tom's arms wrap around her, tucking her head into his chest.

"What is wrong with me?" she sobbed. "How could I just wish my own father away like that?"

"B'Elanna, your feelings didn't change his prognosis, or give him Bretagne Syndrome. Just because you didn't want to have to take care of him doesn't mean you made any of this happen."

She pulled out of his arms. "I'm not a child," she snapped. "I _know_ that. But my first thought when the doctor called, when we got the news…. I was… grateful. I was so fucking _glad_ it wasn't going to be months of his decline, that it was just over."

"These are all normal reactions to a sick, aging parent. Nobody wants to take on a burden like that. No one wants to watch someone suffer— "

"You're not listening to me! This wasn't about him not suffering! Or even about being inconvenienced! It was about me, not wanting to be with him. Not wanting to help him." B'Elanna fell into a chair by the table. "I feel like a monster."

She felt Tom's hands cup the back of her head. "You're not a monster."

"But, I-"

"B'Elanna." Tom's hands slid to her cheeks and pulled up her face until their eyes met. "You are _not_ a monster. Your father… He abandoned you when you were at your most vulnerable. That's something no child should have to go through. No matter how many times he said he was sorry, no matter how many times he babysat the kids, or took them out for ice cream, or the hundred other ways he tried to make up for it — it doesn't change what he did. Of course your feelings for him are going to be complicated. And it's OK if you still hate him sometimes. Even now."

Tom pulled out the chair next to hers, moving close until their knees touched. He wiped the tears from her face with his thumb. "You gave him so much, B'Elanna. You gave him a chance to get to know you again. You gave him grandchildren that loved him. That's all he knew when he died. And maybe that was more than he deserved, or maybe it wasn't, but you don't have anything to feel guilty about."

"I still do," she sniffled as she stared at the spot where their legs touched. "I still feel guilty."

"I know," Tom said, pulling her forward until she could rest her head on his shoulder. "I know you do."

/=\

"Joe, remember the time Abuelito took us fishing here?"

Tom had rented a power boat to take them out into the small horseshoe bay at Puerto Ángel. He had pushed for a sailboat, but the idea had been vetoed by the rest of the family. "We have lives to get back to, Dad," Miral said. "You haven't been sailing outside of a holodeck in ten years."

"And wasn't that the time you got the rudder caught in that fishing boat's net?" Joe added. "Man, they were _pissed_."

"Why did we have kids again?" he grumbled to B'Elanna, but he couldn't hide his grin.

It was a near perfect day, weather-wise, which was no small bit of luck given the time of year. The humidity of summer was just starting to fade, and there was no rain in the forecast. It was still windy on the boat, though, and B'Elanna shivered despite the warm sun on her shoulders. "What happened?" she asked Miral, who was giggling. "When you went fishing?"

"Abuelito wanted to show us how to fish for octopus," she said, biting her lower lip. "He said he used to do it as a child. Joe and I wanted nothing to do with it, though."

"They're really smart," Joe said. "It seemed cruel to hunt for them. Plus, we were convinced they'd be too slimy to eat."

"It's pretty good, actually," Miral added. "Especially when it's fresh. Not quite as tasty as _gagh_ , but the same neighborhood. Maybe we can get octopus for dinner..."

John, Miral told them, had been excited for the kids to give spearfishing a try. He found a man on the dock that ran fishing trips for tourists and boasted that 'every one of my customers catches their own dinner!' John immediately signed them all up for an excursion. But despite both Miral and Joe being excellent swimmers, they refused to join their grandfather in the water. John finally pronounced that he would go on his own, show them how fun it was, and they wouldn't be able to resist joining him. So Joe and Miral watched their grandfather dive again and again into the crystal blue waters, each time coming up with a new catch on the end of his spear. Joe and Miral had, in fact, been impressed with his unexpected hunting prowess, and were just on the verge of jumping in to join him and learn his tricks, when Joe happened to notice someone familiar in a rowboat not too far ahead of their own vessel.

"It was the guy's wife," Joe said, a sly grin appearing on his face. "The guy that owned the boat we were on. She was on a rowboat and chucking replicated octopus into the water for Abuelito to find."

Tom laughed. "Was it a set up? Was he just showing off for you guys?"

"No!" Miral howled. "He had no idea! We think it was just a way for the boat guy to drum up business. Abuelito was so proud of himself, neither of us had the heart to tell him!"

B'Elanna smiled as she sat down in the aft section of the little boat. Tom was right — at least she'd been able to do this for John. Give him grandchildren that loved him, that would remember him fondly.

"You OK, Mom?" Miral had sat down next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

"I'm fine, Miri," she said with a small smile. "Tell your father this is good. We're well past the reef. I think this will be perfect."

Tom threw down the anchor while Miral got the box with John's ashes from below deck.

Miral went first. "Thank you, Abuelito. For loving us. For making us laugh. For always being there when we needed you. I'll miss you so much," she ended with a quiet sob, scattering a portion of the ashes off the back of the boat and into the water. The urn was passed to Joe, and Miral leaned into her father's embrace.

Joe, not surprisingly, did nothing more than mutter a few words that were inaudible to the rest of them before casting out his share. He held out the urn to B'Elanna.

She stared at it for a long moment, her hands locked down by her sides. "Go ahead, Mom," Miral encouraged, still sniffling.

B'Elanna looked up and locked her eyes with Tom's reddened ones. "It's all OK, B'Elanna. Do whatever feels right."

She nodded her head and took the urn from her son. "Good-bye, Dad." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, listening to the gentle waves lapping the sides of their boat and a gull crying overhead. "I love you." B'Elanna tipped the rest of the ashes into the sea and watched them drift away.

 **The End**

* * *

Coming next week! **Falling**


End file.
